PI Highlight
Dr. Laura J. Hall
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that one of every 88 children falls in the autism spectrum. While the incidence of autism is rising, school districts face a shortage of teachers trained to support these students.
SDSU’s nationally recognized master’s in autism program prepares graduate students to work with children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and their families and improves the employment and retention of these special educators.
Dr. Hall and her SDSU colleagues, Dr. Yasemin Turan and Dr. Bonnie Kraemer, have been awarded $4.5 million from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs for their programs preparing M.A. Degree special educators working with individuals with ASD. This grant funding currently provides scholarships for early childhood, middle, and high school special educators.
Dr. Laura J. Hall, professor in SDSU’s special education department, coordinates SDSU’s autism specialization which currently enrolls 44 students. The second edition of her textbook, Autism spectrum disorders: From theory to practice (2013) is recently published.
Not only is it important to prepare special educators to work effectively with students with ASD, they need a solid understanding of how to sustain these practices over time. SDSU’s program helps these educators develop a supportive community of practice. An ongoing evaluation of 24 graduates from one to six years post-graduation, including 12 from the 2006 cohort, showed they all remained in the field, and are successfully implementing and sustaining their use of evidence-based practices.
Professional development of special educators takes time. Working in partnership with a variety of families and collaboratively with related service personnel requires the interpersonal skills often refined with experience. Knowledge of practices supported by research literature, and opportunities to use these strategies with a variety of students over time enables the teacher to practice skills so they are fluent.
As candidates gain knowledge and skills to work effectively with learners with ASD and their families, they are building a solid foundation, depicted in the program’s logo of a surfboard, so they can ride the changing tides of the educational contexts in which they work.
Dr. Kraemer is coordinator of the program in Moderate/Severe disabilities and actively involved in the M.A. in Autism and the Behavior Analysis programs at SDSU. She is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst -Doctoral. Her areas of teaching and research are in the fields of intellectual disability and autism, with a specific focus on families, instruction, transition, quality of life, and positive behavior supports. Dr. Kraemer has an ongoing research study examining the period of transition for 120 young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and their families residing in San Diego. This study examines family involvement and impact during the transition to adulthood for youth with ASD. Dr. Kraemer also is currently running a research study on the PEERS program, developed out of UCLA, which examines the effectiveness of the social skills intervention for teens with high functioning autism (HFA). In the current project trained clinical staff and graduate students in the Autism MA work with teens and their parents to teach the teens how to make and keep friends. The implementation of the PEERS intervention is offered at no cost to families as the program is funded by the National Foundation for Autism Research through a grant received by Dr. Kraemer.
Dr. Turan is the Coordinator of the Early Child Special Education Program. She teaches the early childhood methods courses, and is the advisor for many of the candidates in the program. Her research has included two related areas: (a) assessment of treatment acceptability by evaluating the acceptability of educational interventions developed for practitioners who work with children with developmental delays, and (b) translation of research into practice by understanding predictors of selection and implementation of evidenced-based practices.
Treatment acceptability is an important predictor of the degree to which an intervention can be transferred from research to practice. Dr. Turan’s research in this area evaluated the acceptability of different language interventions for children with disabilities including autism and resulted in publications in peer-reviewed journals. Her current research expands upon this research base to quantify the impact of bilingual exposure on the language development of children with autism. Two factors contributed to Dr. Turan’s interest in expanding the literature on bilingual education: (a) meeting the demands of the diverse community in which we live, and (b) meeting the needs of teacher candidates who serve young children with disabilities. Unfortunately, there is very limited research to guide pre-service and in-service teachers on how to best serve children who are bi- or multilingual. Dr. Turan hopes to continue this contribution in a neglected area of research by measuring the impact of bilingual exposure among children with autism.
For further information, please contact:
Dr. Laura J. Hall
619-594-0768
ljhall@mail.sdsu.edu